OpenAI Has an Unexpected Challenger: Dave’s Hot Chicken

While the tech and finance world continues to debate whether we’re in an AI bubble, one thing is for sure: People love AI!

For proof, like no further than Apple’s App Store, where OpenAI’s ChatGPT app and its Sora video spinoff are atop the “free app” rankings, and …

Whoops? So maybe we love AI, but we love fried chicken more?

Answer: We love — or are at least interested in — both things. But the reason Dave’s Hot Chicken is currently at the top of App Store rankings — above Sora and ChatGPT — is really simple: This week, the fast food chain, which counted Drake as an early investor, gave away free sandwiches to anyone who used the app to order the sandwiches.

Cue lots of downloads, lots of press coverage, and funny scenes like this.

I’m not personally a big Dave’s fan. But at least one of my kids loves it, so I’ve been spending a lot of money on the hot chicken chain. I’m not saying that’s the reason the company was sold in a deal that valued it at $1 billion earlier this year. But it didn’t hurt?

But this is not a story about my discretionary spending. It’s really a story about how Apple’s App Store rankings work. Because while it’s reasonable to think that the rankings are measuring sheer popularity, that’s not the case: They are generally measuring recent velocity of downloads. (Apple doesn’t disclose its formula publicly, but developers have been making informed guesses about this for some time.)

So a hot new app that’s getting a flurry of downloads will rocket to the top — but that doesn’t mean it’s going to stay there.

If you see a top app stay at the top of the app rankings over an extended period of time — like ChatGPT has — then you’re likely seeing an app that has a lot of new downloads and a lot of overall downloads. That is a truly popular app.

But it also means you should exercise caution when a buzzy new app comes out and rockets to the top of the charts, as Sora has done in recent weeks.

Maybe that indicates that lots of people are using Sora all the time. But it could also mean that a lot of people are hearing about Sora — which is still technically limited to users who have invites — and are checking it out.

Whether they’re sticking around is another matter, and we won’t know about that for a while.